of high standing would be sorry to retire upon,
may be lifted to the level of high commercial transactions by the inexpensive
addition of proportional ciphers.
    As to any provincial history in which the agents are all of high moral rank,
that must be of a date long posterior to the first Reform Bill, and Peter
Featherstone, you perceive, was dead and buried some months before Lord Grey
came into office.
 

                                 Chapter XXXVI

 »'Tis strange to see the humours of these men,
 These great aspiring spirits, that should be wise:
 For being the nature of great spirits to love
 To be where they may be most eminent;
 They, rating of themselves so farre above
 Us in conceit, with whom they do frequent,
 Imagine how we wonder and esteeme
 All that they do or say; which makes them strive
 To make our admiration more extreme,
 Which they suppose they cannot, 'less they give
 Notice of their extreme and highest thoughts.«
                                                    Daniel: Tragedy of Philotas.
 
Mr. Vincy went home from the reading of the will with his point of view
considerably changed in relation to many subjects. He was an open-minded man,
but given to indirect modes of expressing himself: when he was disappointed in a
market for his silk braids, he swore at the groom; when his brother-in-law
Bulstrode had vexed him, he made cutting remarks on Methodism; and it was now
apparent that he regarded Fred's idleness with a sudden increase of severity, by
his throwing an embroidered cap out of the smoking-room on to the hall-floor.
    »Well, sir,« he observed, when that young gentleman was moving off to bed,
»I hope you've made up your mind now to go up next term and pass your
examination. I've taken my resolution, so I advise you to lose no time in taking
yours.«
    Fred made no answer: he was too utterly depressed. Twenty-four hours ago he
had thought that instead of needing to know what he should do, he should by this
time know that he needed to do nothing: that he should hunt in pink, have a
first-rate hunter, ride to cover on a fine hack, and be generally respected for
doing so; moreover, that he should be able at once to pay Mr. Garth, and that
Mary could no longer have any reason for not marrying him. And all this was to
have come without study or other inconvenience, purely by the favour of
providence in the shape of an old gentleman's caprice. But now, at the